Commune With Yourself

Tonight’s subject you will find very, very practical. It’s “Commune with Yourself”…that is the title. It is my aim from this platform to raise you to a confident faith in imagining.The logical end of this embodiment of faith in imagining is when “to believe” is not distinguishable from “to know.”True believing is tantamount to knowing. Reading from the Bible it is faith in God; but man, as he hears the word God, he thinks of something other than self, something in space. The vastness of this enormous universe leads him to believe in something other than self. But I am speaking of the only true God. His name revealed to man is I AM. I’m saying Imagination is the divine body in every man, and that is God himself.So, when I speak of faith in God, I’m speaking of faith in self.God’s actions are the imaginal actions of men; therefore, have faith in these imaginal acts. The basis of all that is is imagining. This world in which we live is a world of Imagination.

Now, in his revealed word to us, does it tell us so? Yes, from beginning to end. Tonight we will take a passage from the 4th chapter, the 4th and 5th verses, of the 4th Psalm. We are told, “Be angry”—that’s the Revised Standard Version’s translation of this Hebrew message—“Be angry, but sin not.” The word translated “angry” is to be enraged when you are opposed by some great authority on this level and there is no way out, but none; he has the authority to impose his will and it’s not what you want. You want out, you want the fulfillment of your desire, and here is one endowed with the power to impose his will, and therefore you’re told to be enraged, but sin not. To sin is “to miss the mark.” Don’t give up your goal because he seemingly has the authority to impose his will and say to you, “No, this is final.” So to sin is to miss the mark. We’re told in scripture, never give up the goal, never give up the intention! So, be enraged, but sin not.

Now, the next statement is, “Commune with your own heart on your bed, and be silent.” One translation has it, “And be still.” I prefer the translation of the Revised Standard Version which is “And be silent.” You need not broadcast it, just be silent, having communed with your own heart, you aren’t going to sin. What’s the next? “Offer right sacrifices.” The King James Version, I prefer it, “Offer the sacrifices of righteousness.” If I say, offer right sacrifices, you might think there is something on the outside I must take, and take to whom? There is no one on the outside to whom I would take anything. If I take God something, I give him an imaginal act. I don’t take anything to any person or organization as a gift to God. He doesn’t want a tithe…tithe, if that gives me pleasure, give it. If I want to give to charity, give it in abundance if it gives me any pleasure. If I think I’m doing good, do it. But I’m not tithing with God when I give things. God is Spirit. I bring him an intangible, to him intangible, but to the world an intangible gift is an unseen imaginal act. So, “Offer the sacrifices of righteousness.” The Encyclopedia Britannica defines the word righteousness as “right thinking.” So I offer now the right thought when I’m opposed. That’s not what I want to offer him. He’s my consciousness, he’s my Imagination. Am I going to accept that as final? No. What do I want in place of what I’m hearing, what I’m seeing? I want the fulfillment of my goal; that’s righteousness, offer that to God.

Now it ends on this note, “And trust in the Lord.” The word translated “the Lord” means “I AM.” It’s Yod He Vau He. When God first reveals his true identity and then caps it by saying, “That is my name forever…by that shall I be known throughout all generations,” it’s not just for today it’s forever (Exod.3:14). Where would I go that I’m not aware that I am? I may suffer from amnesia and not know who I am, where I am, what I am, but I can not cease knowing that I am. I can’t stop it. So forever that is God, throughout all generations. “Bring me the sacrifice of right thinking and trust in the Lord forever.” He has ways no one knows of taking that sacrifice and externalizing it on the screen of space.

Now we learn this through a story. Here is a story told me last Tuesday. I wish I had the child here; she’s only nine. I have her father here, and if perchance I’m not telling it as he told me, I wish he would stop me and take the platform and tell you. It’s a simple story. Bill, would you like to tell it? Alright, he will one day. It’s a very simple thing to talk to self, you know. All of this is myself pushed out. Some oppose me, then I’m opposing it; some agree because I agree, and it’s only self pushed out. Well, here is this perfectly wonderful story. My friend is here…he’s here every Tuesday, every Friday…he has one child, a little girl, Lynn, nine years old. In their neighborhood there is a little girl, and they are inseparable; they are doing everything together. Well, the parents decided on a trip to San Diego. Naturally, Lynn goes along. Lynn announced a fact, calling the little girl by name, “She’s going too.” The mother’s reaction was automatic, “She is not going. There is some moment in our lives that we will simply be a family of three, and not always someone else in the family. She is not going.” That was final. Mother has the authority to impose that statement. Not a thing that little lady, nine years old, could do to break it.

Lynn comes to the father and begins to complain, “This is what mother has said.” The father, very wisely—he comes here, he hasn’t forgotten—and he said to the little girl, “Lynn darling, have you forgotten God? He is the final authority. You go to God with everything. You’ve done it in the past, and hasn’t it worked?” “Oh yes.” She closes her eyes. He can’t read the invisible structure of that mind. She opens her eyes and seems so different, and utters the words, “Thank you” and then turns to the father and said, “It’s done. She’s going.” The mother comes upon the scene and turns to the father, she said, “You know, I’ve been thinking it over and I don’t think it would be bad if really they went along together. They’d be companions, they’re down in San Diego, and it would be something always to remember.” So she justifies her change of behavior. The father said nothing; the little girl smiles, all done.

Off they go now to San Diego. They check in at a motel. Lynn said, “You know, daddy, we want our own room.” Mother hears it, “No!” She’s adamant, “You can’t have your own room.” Well, again, in that little short interval Lynn forgot. Lynn turns complaining to the father. The father reminds her of the presence of God; that she went to God, and God responded for the trip. Oh, suddenly it comes back…only a matter of hours…closes her eyes, she makes her arrangement with God—she’s communing with herself—-opens her eyes and says “Thank you.” The mother said to the husband, “You know, it may not be bad if they had their own room together. That’s something to think about all of their lives, because they have their own room. They can play together, sleep in their own room together, and what a memory when the whole thing is over.” The husband agreed with her…and then smiled with the little child.

That night, it was time for dinner. The girl said, “We don’t want to go to dinner. We want to stay home and play in our room alone. I promise you we will not leave the room. We will not go on the street, we will not go out, we’ll stay right in the room together.” “That is completely out! You down here alone…two little children, one nine, one ten, and you’re in a room together? You’d have to have dinner with us.” Well, again she complains. The father says, “Have you again forgotten God?” How often in the course of a moment man forgets God. She’s reminded for the third time in a matter of hours. Alright, she communes with herself, comes out, opens her eyes, ___(??) little bit, “Thank you.” The mother said, “I’ve been thinking this whole thing over, and you know, we haven’t dined together in so long. Just imagine, just the two of us dining together, we haven’t had that. We’ve had our Little League or guests, but never in the longest while have we dined together. What a thrill! So, yes, let them have their evening together, and you and I will go to a nice restaurant and dine together, and we’ll simply relive a past, just dining together.” So the husband agreed with her, “That’s very nice”…and Lynn smiled.

Now we are told, “Commune with your own heart on your bed and be silent.” She said, “Thank you.” We turn the pages over,“Thank you, Father, that thou always hear me.” Thank you.He said this at the most, well, you can’t conceive of any scene in the scripture that is more impossible to man than the statement I have just quoted, said at the tomb of Lazarus. Thank you. But you always hear me. I said it that they may know that I came from you and that you sent me. Yet, he who sees me sees him who sent me for we are one; I and my Father are one. So when you see me you see my Father. And anyone who sees me sees him who sent me. I can’t tell you in better words that I must then be self-begotten. This self is coming out, expanding beyond what it was. And here, I must not forget that eternal self out of which it comes.

Now, what did the little child do? If I could only take her here before you and have her explain exactly how she persuaded self to the point where to believe was to know. It certainly was to know: She persuaded herself it’s done and she knew it, and could say to her father, “It’s done.” Then a change of heart takes place in the mother, and she thinks she initiates it. Yet she didn’t originate it. My mother had that secret. She’d want to go to America, but my father was not the kind of person you gave orders to. He had to feel that he thought it, he initiated it. And so, she would mentally pack and mentally get everything ready for America; then he would come home and say, “You know, Wilsey, I’ve been thinking it over, you should take a trip to America.” “Oh no, Joseph” she protested, “Oh, no, no, no, the expense and all of the children.” “You’ve got to go to America, Wilsey, all the more reason why you’re going to go to America.” She knew exactly how it was going to climax. Then he got the tickets, got everything, and mother went off to America, three or four months at a time. It was all in parceling it out. This one got Neville, that one got Cecil, that one got Victor, and we were all parceled out. And so, she knew it: how to actually imagine a state and so believe it, it was to her tantamount to knowing. She knew it by believing.

If I could only take the little child, Lynn, and have her, in her own childlike manner, explain to the adults just what she does when she’s reminded of God…for she forgets him all of the time. It’s so easy to look into the face of a father, a mother, who has the authority to impose their will on a minor. She’s nine, dependent on her parents for every morsel she eats, every stitch of clothes, where they live, all expenses come out of their pockets. And she knows it, and she knows that until she becomes a major and takes wing and flies from that coop, she still depends upon them for all the things she needs. So their word would be adamant, it would be final, it would be law. On this level, yes it is.

But there is a higher level, a much higher level, and a child can reach it, because a child is endowed with Imagination. Imagination is God, permeating all levels of man’s being, and there is no level where it cannot ascend to and, therefore, bring about changes on the level below that seems so fixed. And may I tell you, you don’t have to go looking, it’s all here all the time. A friend of mine called me last night and asked me to review the first chapter of my book Out of This World before I close. I didn’t even know what the first chapter was all about. It’s been out of print for years. He said, “Use the word dimension, fourth dimensional world,” and I thought he meant me to review some book…the reason he came out on the fourth dimension. I have a few at home, like J. W. Dunne, and Ouspensky’s works, and things of that sort. He said, “No, your own book Out of This World.”

Well, a friend of ours gave us for Christmas the Sunday issue of the New York Times. It comes every Wednesday or Thursday…it happened to come yesterday. Well, here on the editorial page at the very back, these scientists just met and concluded their meeting last week, closing it on Saturday at the New York Hilton. All of the great scientists of the land gathered to bring in their theories concerning this world. And here is what he’s looking for. We are now training the scientists in the expanding mood of the universe. And it will reach its limit of expansion and reverse itself, and return to a contraction that is unbelievable, unimaginable. Every thing collapses into density that you cannot conceive. And then, maybe it will reverse again, and start, like a breathing process, out to the very limits. In that, energy escapes, and energy would be what is being hatched out as it were…called the sons of God. He doesn’t use that terminology, he implies it. He makes a statement that the future exists. That you and I on this level can predict the future, but it is as real now as when it becomes a fact.

Now, here are scientists. I say you can predict it now, that, believe me, there are infinite possibilities. That’s the future. You can accept the dictate of the mother and make that your future, and then be enraged for the entire weekend. Be enraged, but sin not. Let it off your chest if it will help you any, let it off. Blow your top as it were. But all of a sudden remember your goal…don’t forget it. And may I tell you, Lynn, in taking that trivial thing— trivial to us but to her it was a great big thing—but the little trivial act taking her past the facts of life is to God’s complete satisfaction.What pleases God?—faith. Without faith it is impossible to please him.Suppose tonight I earn all the medals of the world because I was such a strategist. I could protect my land against all ___(??), and my land, to repay me, can only give me, well, honors, and they pile it on. If I didn’t have faith, I couldn’t please God. If I gave everything in this world to be burned in the hope of pleasing him and had no faith, I didn’t please him.

Lynn pleased God. She ignored the fact of the opposition of her mother…went to the source of all phenomena which is her own wonderful human Imagination.What she did to persuade herself to believe, in spite of the opposition of her mother, so that when she came out she could know and knowing, she could say to her father, “It’s done. We’re going.” Then comes the change of heart, and being an adult she was convinced she had the change of heart, that she initiated it and it didn’t originate with her little daughter, nine years old. That’s where it started. She had the image, and the mother had to see it three times in just the short interval of a day…a change of heart.

The whole vast world responds, it reflects the activities of man. We’re told, “Do not let the sun go down upon your anger,” James writes in his one epistle.Don’t let it go down on the anger. Be angry, yes. If it is going to release you or in any way help, blow it; but don’t let the sun go down upon the anger, for that’s the sacrifice that you are making. So offer the sacrifice of right thinking, the sacrifice of righteousness.If man is willing to do that, if he wants to spend a few moments with himself in mental argument, all well and good. Now go back to the goal. Don’t brag. Lynn didn’t brag that she got the better of her mother, she only went to God. And God responded.The mother had to be the instrument in which that response could take place, because unless the mother said yes to it it couldn’t take place. So she could thank the mother for the change of heart, knowing that she produced the change of heart. Because, who did it?—she did it.

But if she could only stand here…of if the father…I’ve asked him to write me this in detail before I forget it. And so, whenever I pick it up again—whether it be months from now or when, I don’t know—it’s a lovely story, and if not now committed to print, I’ll forget it. Yet it means so much as you go along the way telling God’s law. Telling how he calls upon every one of us to commune with ourselves, and then be silent about it. Don’t brag, just be silent. Then having communed with ourselves to the point of self-satisfaction then put all trust in that imaginal act, for that was God acting. So, how to do it? Someday, maybe he will put it on paper for me. Maybe this night when he goes home he can ask Lynn, or tomorrow, just what happened to you, Lynn, when you did it? What do you feel? Did you see anything? At the age of nine sometimes you see. But, when she really sees one day, she’s going to see herself. It’s going to startle her.

A friend of mine brought me a letter last night. He finally saw almightiness, infinite might. Not one emotion of compassion, no love, infinite might, not a thing he couldn’t do. It filled a screen bigger than the biggest screen we have today in these colossal things for the theatre. And whom did he see? It was a steel gray face. He saw himself devoid of compassion, but it was the embodiment and personification of might, sheer might. And it’s God. He’s called El Shaddai, the first revealing of his power. All through the Book of Exodus it was power that brought them out, not love. No compassion shown at all. Only in the very end he reveals himself as infinite love. All the things that he put us through, all the afflictions, and he took us through the furnaces of affliction, he did it in love…though he did it as you see him as yourself, driving himself through this enormous furnace of experience.

Another friend writes me that here, suddenly, she sees a figure; it’s to her right and forward. And looking at it, it turns and looks, and it’s herself. As it’s looking at her, it begins to collapse, like fainting. She holds it and helps it to the ground. She’s looking off into an enormous expanse, there’s nothing but the expanse, and a lone figure, herself, looking, collapsing in a faint and she lowers it to the ground. Then it seems like an eternity between that experience and the second, and they happen in one night. The second one, she now sees herself that she had lowered, this time coming out of the earth. The head is free and the arms are free. As these are made free and she looks, seeing herself, it seems to rest the arms on the earth for just a little while to gather the strength necessary to push and push out. What a beautiful vision of what takes place in us. You do come out, and when you’re out, and this is out, and these are out, and you’re up to your loins, then you pull and out you come. She hadn’t seen a completed act; she saw what is in store for her, coming out.

A seed must fall into the ground and die before it can be made alive, this great mystery of life through death. “Unless I die, thou can’st not live. But if I die, I shall arise again and thou with me.” And so, it dies, God actually dies: complete forgetfulness of self. When we read the story of the prodigal and you read, “He came to his own senses,” read it and go to the biblical dictionary and look it up. It is “as one recovering from a faint”—that’s the definition of the word—as one recovering from a faint and it differs from waking in the morning…when you recover from a faint. You know what a faint is? Well, when you faint and you come to from a faint it’s altogether different from waking when you wake in the morning. This is something entirely different from when she saw the act of the faint. And then, you awake. But now the strength has not yet fully arrived to push and pull it out of that earth into which it was planted. But what’s the true earth? This, it’s called Adam in scripture, and Adam means “red earth.” The seed falls into the ground, Adam, and there it remains seemingly alone. But it brings out the image of the one who sowed it. It was himself, for he was in his seed. It’s all one…I and my Father are one.

So here tonight, though you may not know exactly what little Lynn did to persuade self, the story should carry some conviction, some feeling as to what she did. And so, you can simply imagine that you can commune with self and try to believe in the reality of your own wonderful Imagination…it’s God, it really is God. Now all things are possible to God. With men it may be impossible, but with God all things are possible.And if you can just get beyond this opposition in this world, just beyond it by ignoring it…she ignored it and communed with self, and took it out beyond the facts of life. Took it up where she could say thank you. If you say “thank you” the thing is accomplished. No one but a, well, a cad would say “thank you” in the hope that he’s embarrassing you into doing something. When you say “thank you” it’s because the act is accomplished, it’s done. So when you say “thanks,” to you it’s done. Now believing is knowing, and you go putting all your trust in that imaginal act; because you are moving it beyond this level into an entirely different level, where all things are. You have this entire sounding board to reflect it.

So here this night, don’t give up.What you have today as an objective, as a goal, don’t give it up. If you do, you’re sinning. Sinning is defined for us in scripture, “Except you believe that I AM he, you die in your sins”(Luke 8:24).It’s the fundamental sin, the lack of faith in I AM he. So if you do not believe that I AM he, you die in your sins, because you’re going to continue wanting it and not realizing it. You’re going to continue forever wanting and not getting. But if you really believe, you are now the one you want to be to the point of acting in your mind’s eye just as though it were true…that you saw it, you gave thanks for it, and go your way.

Then you will know these wonderful words, “Be angry”—-the King James Version takes that passage and translates it “awe”, but I can’t quite get the feeling that awe conveys to me that enraged does. Awe is something entirely different to me; when I stand awed, startled, I’m not enraged. So the Kg. James. Ver. translates it “to be awed, but sin not.” Now this one, “to be angry (that is, be enraged), but sin not.” “Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be silent.” Now comes what you bring, “Offer the sacrifice of righteousness, and trust in the Lord.” So I bring my right thinking. What would be my right thinking if things are now, this moment, as I desire them to be? I bring it to the Lord.

The whole vast world opposes it, but they all will. And you will know ___(??) that it’s this one endowed with power, that one with power. In my own case, here is a man…never saw him until I was drafted. I didn’t now who he was, but he was, in Caesar’s world, my commanding officer. He was a colonel and I was a private and his word was law. He could order me to do anything, and under the rules I had to do it. When he said no to my request that was final. It could not be appealed to any higher echelon in the world of Caesar. To whom did I go? I went to my own wonderful human Imagination. That’s the one to whom I went. “I know whom I believe in,” said Paul. Yes, to me, I personify it because I’m a person, and so I commune with myself. The inner man walked all around the place, but no one present could see him, and walking around all this place dressed not as a soldier on furlough but as a civilian, honorably discharged. Then comes this wonderful confirmation of the screen, the hand, the pen, the writing, and now comes, the vision breaks into speech. When vision breaks into speech, the presence of Deity is confirmed. The voice said, “That which I have done I have done! Do nothing!” I did nothing but wait patiently for nine days. Then the same man had a change of heart, and to this day he knows he had the authority to keep me there, and he believes he initiated that change of heart. He had no choice in the matter.

But our whole vast world…we have the Bible…it remains unopened; and even to those who open it it’s a closed book, it’s not understood.But here is the message of escape for every being in this world. Every man can be free if he understands God’s law. He said, “I delight in the law of God. And blessed is the man who delights in his law…for in all that he does he prospers.” Not a few things, in all that he does. If he delights in it, then he has faith in it, and with faith you please God. And all things are possible to God.

So I say to every one here, have goals, lovely goals. Don’t modify them…don’t bring them and make it easier for God.The same God that you go to as your Imagination sustains this whole vast universe.So when some people cannot believe in God, perfectly alright. They will one day, because it’s the one God coming out. And because there is only one, the God that animates the garment she calls “father” is the same God that animates the garment she calls “Lynn.” Individualized, yes, you are individualized. And may I tell you, you’ll never be absorbed to the point of loss of identity. You’re individualized, and you tend forever towards an ever greater and greater individualization. That is the purpose for it all.

A glory…well, I can’t describe it, no one here can describe it. I’ve had these experiences, but what words…words fail me, I can’t describe it. It isn’t that I don’t want to, I can’t. I’m not sworn to secrecy; I’m as free as the wind to tell it if I can find words. Even finding words, can I find the word that would be in you that would ring a bell if I use it? And so, it’s something entirely different, that thing that you become. Every one, but every one, will one day have this experience where he actually awakens from this earth, comes out of it, and all the grand symbolism of scripture appears before him, and he doesn’t raise a finger to do it. Then he knows who he is. He heard about it, but he didn’t know. Now he knows. Now his believing in the past has become to him knowing, knowing now from actual experience. Then comes the unfoldment of the entire picture. And now he waits patiently for the garment, for the last time now in this age, when he leaves it behind him. And he now is clothed in an entirely different garment, moving on to ever greater and greater expansion of his being.

So tonight when you go home dwell on what you’ve heard. Don’t give it up. It’s scripture, yes, but scripture is everlastingly true. Everything has its date…and my friend goes home tonight to read what I brought him. It was printed in last Sunday’s Times, the New York Times. That’s this age. Blake, 200 years ago, he said, “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy” (Vis. of Last Judg., Pg.614)… and they called him mad. He never went to school, but he experienced it and told it beautifully. Now our wise scientists are coming out with these theories, and they see in theory but they don’t know. To them it’s the logical conclusion when they observe an expanding universe, and, therefore, it must reverse itself.

Well, the Bible is reversal from beginning to end. Some scholars believe in Eve, that John the Baptist was a twin. Some scholars and their research manuscripts, they come to the conclusion that, here, he comes first, and the second one will take his place; and the second is Jesus Christ. You start all through the entire gospels, all through the Bible, here are the first and second, second taking the first…something coming out. Well, this one cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. No matter how perfect he is, “of those born of women none is as great as John; but I tell you the least in the kingdom is greater than John.” John did violence to himself to achieve it; it doesn’t work that way. Something comes out that is entirely different from this world. A being of love is brought out of that seeming violence, and then you know that God is love.

So you have the prototypes all the way back. You go back and you see the father saying to the son, and Israel speaks now to Joseph, and he turned to Joseph and said, “Now let me die, for I have seen thy face and know that you live.” I’ve seen your face and I know that you live, for it was said though that the boy was dead. They brought in the coat filled with blood and said your son Joseph was eaten by the animals and this is his coat. He recognized the coat, and took for granted his son was murdered and dead. Now comes the word in the 46th of Genesis, Now that I have seen your face, let me die. Simeon: I have seen him, he’s alive…now let your servant depart in peace…to see the child and see that he is alive. It isn’t dead; it comes out and it’s something entirely different. So we see Joseph is the prototype of the bloom that comes out, called Christ Jesus. Same story told all over the Bible, repeating itself on different levels and different awareness.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

___(??) I’ll just take a small ad as I usually do in the Times. But in the meanwhile, apply it and put all of your faith in the grace that is coming to you, which is the Promise; where you’re completely redeemed from this world of violence and enter an entirely different age, an age of the resurrected. You will. So set your hope fully upon that grace that is coming. In the meanwhile, do what Lynn did…only try to remember more than she did. She forgot three times in the day…and so, don’t forget that often. Remember how you go to God, and always go to God. Lucky for her she had a father who reminded her and they could go together.If you don’t have anyone to remind you, try to remember the presence of God by identifying with your own wonderful human Imagination, and close the gap between God and man.As you close the gap, then he’s right here. You’re always where you should be when you go to God. Don’t have to rush into some cathedral, some church, some holy place, wherever you are.If you’re standing in a bar, that’s the place where you can commune with God…no matter where you are, that’s the place. And he’s always present as your own wonderful human Imagination.

Now are there any questions?

Q: (inaudible)

A: In his Vision of the Last Judgment he said, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy.”

Q: Why are there so many differences in intellectual ability? Is it that the child that is closer to God is of higher intellect when it comes out this way and is evolved further than the child that is of lower intellect?

A: I wouldn’t say that, my dear. We judge from appearances… and we’re called upon not to judge from appearances.Someone may have the appearance of a dumbbell in the eyes of the world and be nearer to awakening. For, when he awakens it’s a gift, and the power and the wisdom of God is a gift. If you’re receiving the gift of wisdom that is the wisdom of God, what would be the wisdom of Caesar?All that you read today concerning the latest evolvement, the very latest that man has discovered would be not only not, it would be false to the wisdom of God.

We have this wonderful picture coming back from the moon. It’s a marvelous thing for man to contemplate it, but suppose tomorrow you have an experience where the moon is not out there at all. If you want to step on it, you can step on it within yourself. All things exist in the human Imagination and it isn’t out there at all…that the circumference is within. And the circumference is ever expanding, but it is expanding within.

Q: Actually, the child’s awareness of a…

A: Don’t judge. You know we have in this world of ours…you and I tonight are enjoying the benefits of the gift of a hunchback, Steinmetz. When he came back from Germany, a little tiny fellow with a huge, huge hump on his back, they sent him to Ellis Island. Ellis Island was used in those days for all incoming immigrants who had no money, or who had some defect or had some, well, physical handicap. And we didn’t want to take care of him; he was just about to be returned to Germany. Someone heard of his distress, knowing the man’s abilities in Germany, and sought him out. They pledged for him, that they would take care of the great Steinmetz, little hunchback, really hunchbacked. He gave us, well, you couldn’t number the things he gave us. He was the only one in General Electric that was allowed to smoke in any department. All the departments, no smoking, no smoking, no smoking, and that went from the top down, but not Steinmetz. He was Mr. General Electric.

We have another one…he was considered mad…well, he gave us indirect lighting… came from Yugoslavia. When he said to Edison, “I have it”—“Have what?”—“indirect lighting.” I have the model that will do it—Edison, who gave us direct current, said, “You can’t do it. Indirect current is insane, you can’t think of it. There is no such thing as indirect current.” He said, “Well, not only there is, I have the model.” He said, “Where is it?” “Here. I can stop it and start it in my Imagination, and I’ve worked out all of the bugs already in my Imagination. I started it and discovered something was wrong, so I stopped it, corrected it, and started it again.” And when he took his model to be put into tangible form in three dimensions, there wasn’t one little thing that had to be corrected. You and I enjoy indirect current today.

Well, he lived at the Waldorf Astoria, and he had this peculiar habit of wiping everything with a napkin. Here’s a great scientist. He knew you couldn’t sterilize by wiping off a fork or a knife with a napkin. He dined alone every night; they gave him a huge stack of napkins, these wonderful napkins. Not any paper napkins, nice linens. Every little thing he took from the table, you see him wiping it off, wipe off a fork, spoon, knife, a plate and throw theses things away. But they tolerated this giant of a man. If you judge people from their habits, I’d say “What sort of a man is this?”His name was Tesla, Nikola Tesla. What a giant!

So if you judge a man because he has a little hunchback…I hope that no one has, for then you become part of the people who don’t understand. A man was born blind and he said, “Master, tell me who sinned, his parents or the man, that he was born blind?” He said, “Neither the man nor his parents, but that the works of God may be manifest” (John 9:2). At this moment in time, it is essential to these furnaces that he has this experience. If you read the story, I think it’s the 14th of Luke, when the great banquet is given by Messiah really, and he invited all the cultured, all the intellectuals, all the people that mattered, they all had excuses for not coming. He said, “Go into the byways, bring the blind, the lame, the halt, the maimed, the crippled, bring them all, and have them all be seated.” They answered, “It is done as you said Lord.” He said, “Fill it up.”

Do you know that’s a true story? It happens in the depth of your soul the night that you’re really lifted up and this angelic chorus sings your redemption. They’ll call you by name and say, “risen.” In my own case, they said, “Neville is risen!” and here I am, twisting up, clothed in this heavenly body of fire and air. I was luminous…I didn’t need any sun or stars or moon. I floated…I didn’t touch the earth, just off the earth, just gliding. I came upon this enormous sea of human imperfection, and as I walked by, everyone was made perfect. The empty sockets were filled with beautiful eyes that saw; the dumb sang; the men with arms missing, the sockets were filled, everyone was made perfect. When I glided to the very end the last was made perfect. They feasted upon perfection, for at the moment I was lifted up I was perfect. That was the banquet. They had their fill of what they wanted, and they filled until they actually got what they wanted as I walked by. Then this heavenly chorus exulted, “It is finished!” Then it crystallized once more to this.

So I know that story is true and where the banquet takes place. So here I gathered all of my imperfections and redeemed them. I was the blind, the halt, the lame and every one there they were, and I took all of these garments that I had worn and turned them back into perfection. Then I came back here to tell this story ‘til the end of my present journey. And that’s the end, really, nothing more. They’ll all be redeemed. Now my time’s up.